6.6.1   The painter and President of the Royal Academy Benjamin West (1738-1820) wrote “Take Bath and twenty miles round it and there is not anything in the world superior to it.”

6.6.2   Bath has attracted travellers, writers, artists and musicians for centuries. They were drawn to Bath’s distinctive character, and in turn, they contributed to the development of that character in a multitude of different ways through their work. The cultural perception of Bath has been dominated by three principal components: Bath Abbey; the spa and its Hot Springs; and the Georgian city and its landscape setting.

6.6.3   Bath has an international reputation for the quality of its architecture, urban design, archaeology and landscape setting, as recognised by the city’s status as a World Heritage Site. The warm Bath stone of its classical buildings and their Pennant stone pavements create an image that is the very epitome of an English Georgian city.

Writers

6.6.4   A vast number of writers have contributed to the literature of Bath. Among writers who set their books in Bath are Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Fanny Burney, Tobias Smollett, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Nineteen of the thirty chapters of Austen's ‘Northanger Abbey’ and nine of the twenty-four chapters of her ‘Persuasion’ are set in Bath.

Artists

6.6.5   Bath has always attracted artists to record its buildings and landscapes. Over 160 artists were working in C18 Bath.  Of these, 49 were landscape or topographical painters. Printmakers documented over 1,100 views. 

6.6.6   J.M.W. Turner, one of the most celebrated painters of the C19 created a painting of Bath Abbey in 1793.13

6.6.7   John Nash, (1893-1977) primarily a landscape painter with a great love of nature, visited Bath in the 1920s.  He painted few urban scenes and even these show the subject framed by the surrounding landscape, such as ‘Canal Bridge,’ ‘Sydney Gardens’ and ‘The Suspension Bridge, Bath.’14

6.6.8   The devastation wrought by the Baedeker blitz of Bath on 25, 26 and 27 April 1942 during the Second World War was recorded in a series of evocative paintings and drawings by war artists including John Piper, Clifford Ellis, Leslie Atkinson and Norma Bull.

Norma Bull, “Bath's famous Circus is saved by the work of the Bomb Disposal Squad,” 1942 15

6.6.9   Scenes and images of Bath have been used in advertising including railway posters from 1908 to the 1960s. A good example is C H Buckle’s 1949 poster for British Rail simply titled ‘Pulteney Bridge.’

Photographers

6.6.10 The Bath Photographic Society’s fourth annual meeting in February 1893 attracted attention when it proposed a “…photographic survey of the district.”

6.6.11 It was proposed to obtain photographs of all “… objects of interest which would form a most valuable record for historians, antiquarians and archaeologists.”

Bath Journal 25 February 1893

6.6.12 Forty years before this, the Reverend Francis Lockey (1796-1869) was using the newly invented calotype photographic process to record the city, its river and canal.

Francis Lockey, ‘Pulteney Bridge and Weir,’ 1853

6.6.13 The architectural photographer Frank Yerbury (1885-1970) made a major photographic record of Bath in the 1930s/1940s. 16

Film Makers

6.6.14 Bath is frequently used as the setting for film. Two recent productions include the BBC's 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's ‘Persuasion’ and the 2004 film ‘Vanity Fair.’

Musicians

6.6.15 Music has been at the centre of the city's life from the 1700s. Bath's Pump Room is home to the longest established band of musicians in England, now known as the Pump Room Trio.

6.6.16 “The Pump-Room Band is one of the oldest and best establishments of this place; it draws the visitor and inhabitant from the most distant parts of the city to one general place of morning rendezvous; there long-parted friends indulge in unexpected meetings, whilst the inspiring melody of the Orchestra spreads a general glow of happiness around …. “

Bath Herald 2 February 1799

6.6.17 The proposal for a Bath International Music Festival in 1938 was realised in 1948 and established Bath as a premier festival city.

6.6.18 Composer and performer Peter Gabriel drew inspiration from Little Solsbury Hill for his song ‘Solsbury Hill.’ The song reflects the mystical nature of the landscape, derived in part from the Iron Age hill fort, and mentions the view towards the city of Bath at night,

“Climbing up on Solsbury Hill

I could see the City light

Wind was blowing, time stood still”

Peter Gabriel, 1982